The End of Gun Control? [UPDATED]

Given the recent appalling events in Aurora, Colorado, there's been a renewed call for greater gun control and a ban on assault weapons.

I'm in favor of tighter gun control and a ban on weapons that are unnecessarily powerful but I'm afraid that technology will soon make any legislation that limits the availability of any kinds of guns ineffective.

To understand why this might happen, you need to understand a technology called 3D printing.

3D printing allows you to build things that are, as the name implies, three dimensional. A few years ago 3D printers were very rare, hugely expensive, and hard to use. But as with anything that can be driven by computers, 3D printers has become cheaper and cheaper to the point where, today, you can buy a 3D printer, off the shelf, for as little $500.

Using either free or low cost computer aided drafting software you can create digital 3D models of pretty much anything you can think of and, with hardly any fuss, your 3D printer will render them as physical objects.

The only contraints on what you can print are that the size of the printed object (typically a maximum of 6 inches by 6 inches by 6 inches unless you spend more money on your printer ; the bigger the final object you want, the more you'll have to spend), the material printed (all of the low end printers can, at present, only print with thermosetting plastics; very high end printers can print with ceramics and metals), and the resolution of the printer (for current low end printers this is typically around 0.1mm).

So, can you print a gun? Yep, you can and that's exactly what somebody with the alias "HaveBlue" did.

To be accurate, HaveBlue didn't print an entire gun, he printed a "receiver" for an AR-15(better known as the military's M16) at a cost of about $30 worth of materials.

The receiver is, in effect, the framework of a gun and holds the barrel and all of the other parts in place. It's also the part of the gun that is technically, according to US law, the actual gun and carries the serial number.

When the weapon was assembled with the printed receiver HaveBlue reported he fired 200 rounds and it operated perfectly.

[UPDATE] HaveBlue uploaded his digital model to several 3D model archives and at least one, Makerbot, has since banned gun designs but has allowed HaveBlue's receiver model to remain in their Thingiverse 3D object archive.

What's particularly worrisome is that the capability to print metal and ceramic parts will appear in low end printers in the next few years making it feasible to print an entire gun and that will be when gun control becomes a totally different problem.

Will there be legislation designed to limit freedom of printing? The old NRA bumper sticker "If guns are outlawed, only outlaws will have guns" will have to be changed to "If guns are outlawed, outlaws will have 3D printers."

[UPDATE] The following comment is from Michael Guslick (aka Have Blue):

Correction Request: Mark's article on my 3D printed AR-15 lower receiver incorrectly states that the AR-15 is the same as the M-16. The M-16 is indeed based on the AR-15, but the M-16 is a select-fire weapon and cannot be owned by civilians (save for a very few and very expensive old ones manufactured prior to the May 1986 ban). The AR-15 is a semiautomatic rifle (I commend you for not using the term "assault rifle", as it is not one) and is legal for civilian ownership.